Kino Otok brings over 100 films from around the globe

The number of films remains comparable to previous years, whereas the format of the festival has been somewhat adjusted to the coronavirus.

Besides the main segment in Izola, a number of films have been screened around Slovenia since 16 June, according to the director of the Kino Otok - Isola Cinema festival, Tanja Hladnik.

The third segment will take place online in September, when the Slovenian Cinematheque hosts a retrospective of Portuguese director Pedro Costa.

Balloon by Chinese director Pema Tseden and The Orphanage by Iranian director Sadat Shahrbanoo will open and close the main festival segment, respectively.

Both films are from Signals, the section which features established filmmakers, film selector Varja Močnik explained at a recent news conference in Ljubljana.

She also highlighted Corpus Christi by Polish director Jan Komasa, Oliver Laxe's Fire Will Come, Islandic director Runar Runarsson's Echo and Sons of Denmark by Ulaa Salim, which focuses on a terrorist attack in Copenhagen.

The Good Neighbours section will feature two Serbian films, Ivana the Terrible by Ivana Mladenović and My Morning Laughter by Marko Djordjević.

A new section, Chiaroscuro, will bring several films focussing on burning issues which are usually not in the focus of media attention, including Francis Alys's Sandlines, the Story of History, a story about children in Iraq.

The other new section introduced this year, dubbed Extraserial, brings Bruno Dumont's black comedy TV series Coincoin and the Extra-Humans.

A total of 61 short films from 22 countries will be shown as part of the Video on the Beach section brings, while children will also be able to watch a series of films for them.

Hladnik said that some films would be screened twice because of Covid-19 restrictions allowing smaller numbers of visitors at one venue.